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Is the Newbie forum useful?
Remove the Newbie forum & merge threads to other forums
37%
 37%  [ 45 ]
As above, but change the Newbie forum into a FAQ forum
43%
 43%  [ 52 ]
Newbie forum, and its problems, should be left alone because... (post reason)
12%
 12%  [ 15 ]
I have a better idea (post idea)
5%
 5%  [ 7 ]
Total Votes : 119

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ClippyHater
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 5:36 pm    Post subject: Ok, I'm a noob to Linux and Gentoo, here are my thoughts Reply with quote

There truly are a ton of duplicated threads scattered across the forums. For instance, I had posted a request for help with kdevelop initially in the noob forum, since I figured people would explain things in such a way that I'd understand it. After a bit without responses, I posted the same request for help in Portage and Programming, and almost immediately got a response there. IMO, most noobs are in the same boat: they need knowledge, don't want to waste experience users time in a non-noob forum, and perhaps they end up dual-posting their question.

What a noob really needs, imo, is a really well indexed knowledge base. Perhaps a drill-down scheme (apache->[config|security|etc], development->[general|desktop|cli], etc). Perhaps a wiki would be the best bet...? Anyway, if there was an easily, accurately searchable knowledge base, I'm sure more would use it. For instance, search on fonts... go ahead... 682 results. Ok, a bit overwhelming. So, try 'fonts and kde'... 125 results. These forums are great, and there's a TON of knowledge in here for noobs and pros alike, however, getting to the specific bit of knowledge is extremely time consuming.

For people looking for help, which is most of the people in noob, at the very least, I think a knowledge base would be much more appropriate than a bbs. Perhaps do your search in the knowledge base, and after a few tries without success, provide them a link to an 'ask an expert' type of bbs, but only after a couple of tries.

Anyway, that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation and wordiness).
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not new to linux but let's say a little bit unfamiliar with it. The newbie forum sometimes gives good hints on what things I could try to do with a Gentoo installation.

And it's a perfect place to find the topics for a FAQ which is up to date. If the FAQ would be updated often and extensive, there won't be so many repeated posts.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

im not sure about the newbie forum since i dont really read it much, however i would definately support the faq idea. so many questions have been asked over and over but its just hard to find one thats exactly the same or same hardware.

plus id like you guys to consider adding a beta/bleeding edge software/2.5 kernel forum, or at least fix phpbb so you can search for stuff like '2.5'
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:17 pm    Post subject: only my opinion Reply with quote

I think the Newbies section is more an Linux Newbies section than a Gentoo Newbies Section. I am quite noob so I know that most of noob question are related to Linux and no to gentoo specifically.

So, IMHO , the section can be close
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am for some sort of newbie forum. While I am not totally new to Linux, I am totally new to Gentoo. A lot of my questions are answered by searches, but there a quite a few that aren't. I would think twice about posting some of my noob questions in other forums, because I wouldn't want to participate in flooding the other forums with noob questions. When users become knowledgable about gentoo, I think they will spill into the other forums.

Pluses:

1. Keeps dumb questions from appearing in other forums
2. Gives newbies a sense of ease at posting what they may think is stupid and therefore helps the learning process
3. When newbies learn enough to start helping out a lot in the newbie forum, they can move to the other forums for their questions.
4. Advanced users that tend to get irritated by many stupid questions have other places to go where newbie questions aren't asked.

Minuses

1. Newbie forum has too many duplicate posts
2. Some advanced users wont be helping out the work load by not viewing the forum

I think a newbie forum is a good idea, but it needs to be controled more than other forums. I notice some threads are marked as duplicate. I like the library idea, where FAQs are held.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm agnostic... Lol

The Newbie forum has its merit, but I also see the problem with duplicate posts, posts that better belong in a different forum, etc.

I good point was how to differenciate between new to Linux and new to gentoo. The level of knowledge may be enormous, with one who is very experienced in Unix/Linux but new to the intricate ways of Gentoo while the other has no clue about Linux at all. It's hard to cater to both in a newbie forum without sometimes making the other person look "dumb" which is not the intention.

I think maybe, if the newbie forum went awau or was turned into some sort of a FAQ fourm, that all of us who contribute answers on a regular or not-so-regular baisis needs to take a little bit more time to read the questions and maybe take into account the time the poster has been a memeber of the forum, the number of posts and the wording used in the question. By doing so, we may be able to provide better support.

Bottom line, I don't think there is an easy answer, some toes are going to be sore no matter what is beeing done. I think it is more a hint to us "helpers" that we should be a little bit more careful in our answers, I know because I'm one of them :)

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 7:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think there are valid points about overlapping between threads but also about the newbie board being a good place for beginners to ask newbie questions.. So what I would think would be most appropriate would be something of a compromise.. keep the newbie forum, but in the description write clearer definition of what should be in it. In fact, I might even think that (possibly) two newbie boards could be created. A *nix newbie board and a Gentoo newbie board where the *nix would cover basics of a *nix system and the Gentoo newbie board would cover things like getting started with portage, rc scripts, and other gentoo specific things. I could see some overlap between the Gentoo board and portage and programming, though, so there's at least that drawback to this idea.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rac, Klieber, Kanuslupus,
Your comments are interesting, but I wonder: are your comments made from your personal point-of-view, or are your comments based on your "moderator" point-of-view?

I have noticed on another "huge" forum, that the newbies and newbie-questions put a lot of strain on the moderators.
I would imagine that, for a moderator, a newbie-forum would be more "manageable" than having newbies all over the place :)
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sessionID
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 7:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Delphiki wrote:
... A *nix newbie board and a Gentoo newbie board where the *nix would cover basics of a *nix system and the Gentoo newbie board would cover things like getting started with portage, rc scripts, and other gentoo specific things. I could see some overlap between the Gentoo board and portage and programming, though, so there's at least that drawback to this idea.


Imho "noobs" don't know what is *NIX or Gentoo specific, that's one reason why they are called noobs... ;)
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm in favor of moving the Newbie forum to an FAQ-style forum. As others have pointed out, there is quite a bit of cross-topic posting between Newbie and the other forums.

If it were instead an FAQ, that would probably address the concerns about "newbie" questions in other forums. A newbie question is nearly always frequently asked. Presumably this FAQ would cover both "New to Linux" questions as well as "New to Gentoo" questions.
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rac
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@AlterEgo: My comments are made with my "forums" hat on, meaning what I think would be good for all of the people who use the forums - not what I would personally prefer or what would make moderators' jobs easier.

Because of the "safe haven" principle klieber mentioned earlier, I am extremely reluctant to move things into or out of Newbies (unless it's going to Duplicate Threads) - I think I've done it a grand total of twice. The idea being: if you move a post out of Newbies, you're more likely to confuse the poster, who's likely unfamiliar with how the forums work. If you move something into Newbies, the poster might get offended if they think that "Newbie" is a derogatory term.

Perhaps this is the crux of the problem. If the taboo on moving things into and out of Newbies were lifted, we could maybe make it a forum that only has questions of interest largely to newcomers to Gentoo or Unix. This might require changing the title of the forum, or posting a sticky thread at the top of the forum that says, among other things, "don't be offended if your post gets moved in here - that just means that we thought it might be of interest to newcomers".

Just to touch on another couple of points that have been made:

I'm against expiring threads for the same reason I was against deleting them earlier in here: if someone takes the time to post something, even if all it does is seed search keywords for a FAQ, I think we should do our best to keep it in the archives.

Although I understand the sentiment, I think if somebody's asking a question, they often don't know whether it's Unix-specific, Linux-specific, or Gentoo-specific, and I don't think splitting Newbies (and thereby increasing the number of forums) will gain anything.

Thanks to everyone participating in here, btw.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rac wrote:
kanuslupus somehow managed to get "p=13028" instead of "t=13028".
If only it were that redeemable. I had intended to link directly to kliber's post. Link fixed.


Some points I'd like to address:
  • Ask newbie questions without getting flamed
    Overall, I think the community in these forums are not prone to flaming. I have witnessed a couple of occaisions where one could consider it borderline. Protecting users from potential flames doesn't make a good argument for a special forum IMO. If this were to become a problem, we should target those that are flaming.

  • Allow some users to not bother with newbie questions
    Is it that difficult for these users to just ignore the posts they don't like? Oftentimes, the title will reveal that it is a question they won't want to read. If they actually open the thread, and discover it is a question they don't want to deal with, move on. I'm not seeing the big problem here. If the 'advanced' user is having that much of a problem with it, they should grow up. In addition, moderators tend to point toward posts that already answer the question and move it into the Duplicates forum.

  • Answering newbie questions with detailed answers
    As I mentioned in my opening post, I think there are ways to make an educated guess as to the questioners abilities. Lets assume someone answers a true 'newbie' question with a succinct, but very complete answer. If the newbie doesn't understand the answer, they will (should) ask for clarification. I don't see this as a big concern. A person is either willing to answer newbie questions or not. I don't see much risk of a person becoming irritated that they were ask to clarify an answer.

  • Locking people into a place that they shouldn't be
    I agree with this very much. I think a good number of posters to the newbie forum feel obligated to post ther because their question would be a 'bother' to advanced userse. Is there a way we can address this concern?

  • Uncomfortable asking in a regular forum
    This is very much related to the previous point. At first, this appears to be a good justification for keeping the forum. Unfortunately, I think it encourages this behavior. Could these points be effectively addressed in Guidelines (READ BEFORE POSTING)?

  • No such thing as a stupid question
    This is also a good point that is 100% true. If it hasn't been asked, then there is no reason it shouldn't be in with the rest of the population. If it is asked often enough, then it needs a FAQ entry.

  • Big giant letters telling people to search first
    I'm not sure there is an effective method to encourage searching. So far, nothing seems to be working. Yes, there are lots that do search. If I'm not mistaken, when signing up for an account, there is a comment about searching. It would seem that many don't read it.

  • Answers to newbie questions are often not searched for
    In many cases this seems to be true. The umpteen threads covering "I can't su" and "How do I add a user" (and others) seem to demonstrate this. This is a key factor in my motivation to come up with some sort of FAQ forum until we can have a Gentoo knowledge base (GLKB?). I think the little FAQ link at the top of the forums is overlooked in many cases (as well as the search link). This puts the anxious user into the forum categories. Some post directly to the Newbie forum, others might see Installing, Desktop or Networking and post there. If a FAQ forum were first on the list, would it be read more? I think it would, but I'm not naive enough to think it will stop all errant posts.

  • Searching is difficult
    There is no doubt about it. Searching is not an easy task. In some cases, I think this can be a reason why 'newbie' posts are asked. I tend to think these questions are slightly more advanced than the 'su' type questions. A user runs into an error and is eager to get their system running. They may or may not search first. Posting is quick, and may get some information, so they do that. After they've posted their question, some may try and search for an answer.


I don't expect to stop all FAQs from being asked. However, I think we can improve the FAQ for the here and now as opposed to waiting for the GLKB to go online (which may not happen for a long time). Hopefully, this FAQ could be a starting point for information to go into the GLKB.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that the idea of merging the threads into other forums sounds like the best idea. Despite the many duplicates in the newbies forum, there are also quite a few good questions and answers. It would be a shame to lose them all.

I almost didn't like the idea of getting rid of the newbies forum because when I check the forums, esp. if I've had a bad day, sometimes I just can't stand seeing n00b threads. They just annoy me. I think that this falls under selfish and non-community oriented though so I threw in my support for a merger. Maybe it will prevent people like me ignoring newbies while still maintaining the knowledge in the forum.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AlterEgo wrote:
Rac, Klieber, Kanuslupus,
Your comments are interesting, but I wonder: are your comments made from your personal point-of-view, or are your comments based on your "moderator" point-of-view?
Good question. Prior to being a moderator, I think I felt the same way. As a moderator, I think it would be easier to manage without the Newbie forum. As a user, I think the forums would be improved by having posts in their correct forum. Not having to go to Newbie & Desktop to find KDE information (not that I use KDE).

My motivation behind all of this is to improve the experience of the user (and as a user!). If questions are asked often, that suggests the current system isn't working for users to answer those FAQs. Newbie forum or not, I'd like to see that improved.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Personally, I think a primary Gentoo FAQ should start being formulated.
It doesn't have to start off huge, but it can grow as we find common things that are being asked in the newbies forum, and answer them in the FAQ. It will grow exponentially, and is not unlike alot of other distributions way of taking care of this problem.

I personally look at FAQs when I have questions, to make sure I don't have my question answered by a single answer there.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

EDIT: FAQ as in an FAQ off of the main page... not a forum based FAQ.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like avoiding flames too. Otherwise when people like me have a 'hangs on startup'-type problem we would have to post the question in another equally vague forum, 'Installation', due to having no idea what the problem is.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ibrandt wrote:

I'm anti-many-forums in general. I just posted something in the Newbies forum, and then to the Portage forum, and now I'm thinking I need to take it to the developers mailing list. If you ask me there should be three main forums: news & announcements, users, and developers. The same forums should be read/write-able via web, email, and Usenet.


This idea is good from a *searching* perspective, but poor from a *skimming* perspective. I am just at the beginning of building a couple gentoo boxes. I'm not even close to adding multimedia stuff. I like not having to read that group *yet*. Likewise for networking. I'm pretty good at configuring IP stacks so I never have had to read those articles. But I find myself spending a lot of time now in 'Installing Gentoo' and 'Portage and Programming'. Later, when I've got all my stuff merged happily, then I can start hanging out in the Desktop, Games, and Multimedia forums.


I like this progression. Most of us go through this same evolution of installing: First dealing with getting the stuff onto the box, then getting it to compile, then building the kernel, then getting it to boot, then getting the apps we want on it, then tweaking it to match our style or needs. It's handy having forums that cater to this (if only roughly)...

The newbie forum is certainly welcome. I'm not Linux newbie, but Gentoo itself is a new beast for me. I can ask my naive questions there and not frustrate anyone (not that I've tried in the other forums... perhaps people there are patient as well).

I also liked the comment earlier that posts in the Newbie forum are good indications that a careful step-by-step answer will probably be needed, rather than a short summary. As long as our user profiles are labelled according to number of posts rather than by our actual skill levels, there's no other way (without outright asking) of knowing if a person is really a newbie and will need hand-holding. If we could assign our own labels, then newbies could brand themselves accordingly and expect more simplified answers...

Perhaps all that is needed is discouraging complex troubleshooting in the Newbie form and ask that those be moved to the appropriate technical area. If something is "broke" take it to the respective forum. If you're trying to learn or make decisions ("How big should my boot partition be?"), ask in the Newbie area?

Anyway, not sure I stayed entirely on the topic of keeping the Newbie forum, but just wanted to toss a few more opinions/suggestions into the fray...
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kanuslupus wrote:
[*]Answering newbie questions with detailed answers
As I mentioned in my opening post, I think there are ways to make an educated guess as to the questioners abilities. Lets assume someone answers a true 'newbie' question with a succinct, but very complete answer. If the newbie doesn't understand the answer, they will (should) ask for clarification. I don't see this as a big concern. A person is either willing to answer newbie questions or not. I don't see much risk of a person becoming irritated that they were ask to clarify an answer.

I like you thought here, but I seem to recall rac talking about his methods of answering a question depending on the amount of effort that the poster put into asking the question. Without a newbie forum, there could be people who are really confused and don't know a whole lot about their problem posting right next to lazy posters who want a quick fix, but don't want to try and type out all the details of their problem. It seems like we could then make it difficult to distinguish between the two. I wish I could find rac's posts about this because I think it would make more sense if I could link to his posts. :( Does it say something about the search feature when I know what the post was about and who posted it and I still can't find the post? Wait, here it is: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=73974#73974
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The link to Rac's post was a good one. The thread he mentioned reminded me of this document which should be required reading for anyone who intends to use a computer to ask a question. Particularly the difference between the posts by the Guest(s) and those by Irony. Both posters were not all that experienced, but Irony knew how to ask good questions and help others help him. He was even able to stick around to try to help the Guest (who seemed to be just about beyond help in spite of some very patient people trying).

I think eliminating the newbies forum would make the forums more usuable to everyone. I don't think segregating the newbies from the more experienced users is helpful to anyone, and I don't think it's hard to identify newbies who need more attention, detail or plain language in their answers. Half the time, they announce it - "I'm a newbie and am having trouble with foo" or "I'm new to Gentoo and I'm getting stuck at foo when I try to bar." It would be neat if everyone could have their experience level listed alongside their avatar, but it's not really practical, and a guess based on the content of the question is usually right. Even if it's not, the n00b can always follow up with "I'm sorry, I'm kinda new at this, could you be more specfic" or "I'm not sure what you mean by foo - could you give me the steps for trying that"?

Lots of newbies probably just go straight to the newbie forum, since it's at the top, and it sounds inviting. Making them chose a more specific forum will probably help them get a better answer. They might understand their own question better when they try to figure out where to post it. When they do look at the other forums, they might see other posts that could answer their question before they even ask it.

I still think it would be useful to have REALLY BIG BOLD links to the FAQ and the SEARCH functions (and maybe google) at the top middle of the page (maybe where the newbie forum is now). I have no doubt that some people fail to see the search or faq options because they don't see them when glancing at the page. If they were front and center in big bold text, you'd have to conciously skip past them instead of just missing them inadvertantly. Sure, there'd still be some people who neglect to use them, but I think the number would be reduced.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm new to Gentoo and fairly new to Linux. I have found searching to be unwieldy. I like the idea of FAQs with a place to post newbie questions if none of the FAQs fit. That would help me the most. If the FAQs can help in the writing of detailed guides even better. For someone new to linux Gentoo is a beast, and even with some experience it is cumbersome.

On a similar note, I think something that would be helpful would be a config database of some sort. Since a lot of config files are done be hand or edited by hand, it would be useful to see examples. If there was a way for people to post descriptions of the hardware or software with their config file, or simply adequately document their config, it would be great. I best learn by example and if you are new to editing these files it would be a great advantage to be able to see working config files.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 1:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

noff wrote:
On a similar note, I think something that would be helpful would be a config database of some sort.

I think that is a really good idea, regardless of how far from discussing the noobie forum it is. Maybe head on over to the documentation forum and start a thread asking what you would like to see.

As for the noobie forum, I think that the gentoo forums are a very fluid undertaking. Things happen, mostly for the better, but usually without much input from the users. I like how the moderators are getting user opinions on this topic.

Granted I have voiced my opinion about what I think several times now, I don't think we are coming to any consensious as to what exactly to do. Although I may be jumping the gun in this assumption, feel free to shoot my idea down.

It seems that the noobie forum has its values, and I see that now, and yet it also seems as though it would be better if it were dispersed.
Could we make a category in the search options that searches every forum except the noobie forum? Would this be in anyway helpful? In that way, when searching, a user who doesn't like the noobie forum wouldn't have to deal with it. And maybe have a moderator or two just dedicated to the noobie forum to keep it clean and free of dup posts. The FAQ idea seems popular regarldess of stance taken on other issues, so I think that is a winner. I guess my big letters idea won't work... maybe we should hipnotize every gentoo user with super search abilities? :lol:
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How about adding a button to the bottom of a thread called "this solved my problem". Then, after the number of button clicks reaches a certain threshold, the thread is "copied" to another "FAQ" category. The rank of the thread could decay over time - and eventually expire due to inactivity.

Just a thought, perhaps a little complex, but certainly pheasable.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't see much reason to keep the Newbie forum.
I would like to see sort sort of FAQ though, particularly, if it consisted
in a set of Wiki pages.
At present, the problem I see with the forums is that people bring their problems and thrash them out but when they are finally resolved there is nowhere to write them up and store them away for future reference.
I would like to see a hierarchical FAQ that could be easily added to and organised as it grows.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 5:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mihochan wrote:
I would like to see sort sort of FAQ though, particularly, if it consisted in a set of Wiki pages.
This is a wonderfull idea. The comunity has, what, 8000 registered users. A Wiki seems like the most efficient way of writing a FAQ.

According to the What OS did you use before migrating to Gentoo? thread about 25% migrated from Windows. From this I conclude that we have a lot of Linux newbies and that we have to deal with them. Removing the newbie forum won't make them go away ;)

I recently asked a question in the newbie forum that IMO doesn't fit in any other forum. My problem is that I have borked devfs and my floppy disk won't work. (No answers to my problem in this thread please. It's just an example.)

If the newbie forum was removed where should I have asked this question?
1) Other Things Gentoo? (It isn't Gentoo related.)
2) Hardware and Laptops? (Its a problem with devfs not the hardware)
3) I shouldn't be asking general Linux questions in the Gentoo forums. RTFM

Ok I didn't really have an opinion when I started writing this but now I have :) Remove the Newbie forum and create a "All Things Linux" forum.
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squanto
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 5:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

henke wrote:
Remove the Newbie forum and create a "All Things Linux" forum.

There used to be a "General Linux" forum, but it got "discontinued" durring the summer I think.
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